Page 36 of Blacktail

“The creatures of her valley lived in terror, for no one knew when the shadow of Diver Eye would fall upon them. Her reign was cruel. She killed not only for food but also for her pleasure. Each day after she had eaten, she would snatch up another small creature. This one she did not eat, but only carried high into the sky and dropped, so that she might hear the music it made as it fell to its death.

“But one day a little mouse rose up against her, saying that he would endure no more. Diver Eye would surely have killed him had she known, but he was very small. He spoke softly. She did not notice such a tiny rebellion.

“The little mouse swore to climb Diver Eye’s mountain, to carry the battle to her nest. All the other mice laughed at him, but he set out, nonetheless, climbing during the day when she hunted in the valley, and hiding at night. As the suns and moons passed, the tribe of mice saw, to their astonishment, that he was actually doing it. The first night he made it only a little of the way up the mountain. Many laughed at his foolishness. But each night he drew closer, and the laughter dried up. Before a full cycle of the moon, they saw he was nearing the nest where Diver Eye warmed her eggs.”

“Is that a track?” one of the hounds asked softly.

“It may be,” answered the other. Blacktail heard them quite clearly, though their voices were low. They’re very close, I think.

But Slipper would not be swayed from his tale. “The next day when Diver Eye went out hunting, the little mouse snuck into the nest where her eggs lay. Using all his strength, he rolled the eggs up and over the side of the nest, pausing only to pop his head over the side and watch as they smashed on the rocks below. When Diver Eye returned to her nest, her children had all been murdered. The little mouse was reclining at ease on the straw where they once lay.”

“What did she do?” Blacktail asked.

“What do you think? She ripped the little mouse to bits. She tracked his family down and ripped them to bits. She ripped his friends to bits, and his neighbors. Also, from that day forward, she murdered not one but two creatures after her daily meal. Do you understand?”

“I’m not sure that I do,” Blacktail said. “The little mouse died in the end, did he not? Diver Eye still ruled the valley, and her reign was crueler than ever. Nothing had changed.”

“No, no, no. I’m surprised at you, Blacktail. None of that matters. The little mouse had his revenge; that is the important thing.” Trap-Slipper stood up and shook the snow from his fur. He moved to the entrance of the gulley and poked his nose out for a quick sniff.

“Slipper, what are you—”

“Shh! They’ll hear you.”

From outside in the snow came the voice of one of the hounds, baying, “There he is!”

“My mother was called Snow,” Trap-Slipper said. “If you were to kill a man in her name, just one, I would consider all debts repaid.” Then he leapt out into the snow and was gone, taking the baying of the hounds with him.

v

Rex and Cephus saw the fox slip out of the gully at the same time Dad did. Dad dropped the leashes before he realized the motion was fox, not wolf. Rex and Cephus were very fast. Dad dove to catch their leashes, but succeeded only in gathering a face full of snow.

Cephus thought the fox ran slower than it might have, and Rex wondered why it had broken from such a clever hiding blind. But in a moment’s time they were on the chase, and all thought was forgotten.

They ran the fox to earth a few breaths later. Rex seized hold of a hind leg. Cephus grabbed one from the front. Then each strained away from the other. The front leg gave way first. A great stream of fox blood shot out across the snow and splashed Cephus in his eye.

“Ha! That one got you good, didn’t it?” Rex said over the dying fox.

“Yeah. It did.”

“Say, did you smell something…?” Rex asked.

“What? Back at the gulley? A whiff of…” He did not use the word wolf. Cephus wagged his tail slowly, thinking of the horrors that lay in the den of the two-legs. Horrors that would remain even after the sun had set for the last time, if Snooky-Ookums were to be believed. “I smelled nothing,” he said after a long moment. “Did you?”

“No,” Rex said, meeting his eyes. “Nothing at all.”

They each selected a choice piece of fox meat, then trotted happily back to their father.

No one ever thought to wonder at the smile on the little fox’s face. Soon it was covered by the falling snow.

Chapter 3

Dominion

i

When it was dark, Blacktail crept out of the gulley. He continued south, passing through the valley, the dens of the two-legs. He went unnoticed.

Well, mostly.